By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, November 9 -- While the UN Security Council held consultations Monday about its peacekeeping mission's involvement in the armed conflict between rebel groups and the Congolese Army, a related but more personal drama played out just outside the UN on First Avenue.
The UN summoned New York City police officers to deal with John Dimandja Wembalonge. John C. Fernandez of the NYPD's Threat Assessment Unit counseled Mr. Dimandja to "stay away from the UN," following an e-mail Dimandja had sent to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, reproduced in full below.
In it and related correspondence to the UN, Dimandja explained that he was a national staff member of the UN Mission in the Congo who had fled death threats after helping the UN disarm rebels in Ituri in Eastern Congo.
Now Dimandja's family remains in the region at risk. "The UN is doing nothing," Dimandja told Inner City Press on First Avenue on Monday night. He said that the chief of the UN's Department of Field Services Susana Malcorra had, though an intermediary named Cedrick, told him to bring in his internal UN employment file, called at PHP, that perhaps a job could be found for him in New York and then his family brought.
"But that will be too late," Dimandja told Inner City Press, and Officer Fernandez.
According to Dimandja, while working for the UN in Ituri he was sent in to meeting of Lendu militias to convince them to disarm..Dimandja took pictures and video, and had, he says, much success in disarmament. But when militia leader Mathieu Ngudjolo was indicted for war crimes, Dimandja's video footage put him in danger.
"They were trying to kill anyone who had taken pictures," he told Inner City Press. Who? "The militias had become soldiers in the Congolese Army," he said. It was the same government soldiers who the UN assists who were trying to kill him.
Dimandja says a UN official, Philip Toulet, advised him to pay a bribe to Congolese police, and to get paperwork to flee to the U.S. and seek asylum. He arrived in New York a year ago, and went straight to UN headquarters. He says the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services, ostensibly in charge of investigations, referred him to the staff counsel. He got nowhere, and lacking the funds to stay in New York City, he went upstate to Rochester for three months.
Since being back in New York, he has sought to meet with Ban Ki-moon. But his e-mails, culminating in a threat to step in front of Ban's motorcade, resulted only in interventions by NYPD. "Stay away from the UN," Officer Fernandez advised him Monday night. "Perhaps this gentleman can help you." Here's hoping.
And see, www.innercitypress.com/un1dimandja111009.html